1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system, which may be embodied in image-processing software, for evaluating a document having text and graphics. The document may be evaluated by certain psychological criteria, or a user may begin with certain desired psychological criteria and use the system to create a document according to these criteria.
When creating a document such as a poster, a page having both text and graphics, or a multi-page book having text, graphics, and chapter and section headings, there will be created in the document not only the text of the document, but also an overall visual impression which transcends the text of the document. The overall visual impression is typically used to "help" the information in the text to be communicated. To take a simple example, in creating a poster announcing an event, it is helpful that the title of the event be placed in large, conspicuous letters, and that the location and time of the event be clearly marked, for example, by placing the information in large block type with a border around it, or printing particularly important information in a highlight color different from the rest of the document. These purely visual clues aid substantially in efficient communication.
In more sophisticated cases, graphical information in addition to text can be used to further enhance communication. For example, a paragraph may be placed within a border; a paragraph may be placed over a color rectangle; stripes may be placed on the document to interact visually with the text; paragraphs may be highlighted with "bullets" or "dingbats," which are miscellaneous printing symbols. If a word-processing program enables the use of such graphical devices, the possibilities for making a particular document unique become multiplied considerably. On a deeper level, the specific graphical arrangement, whether in text or graphic or both, can itself convey a visual impression in conjunction with the text. For example, a circus poster and a death certificate are likely to have different arrangements of color, font, and symmetry. Thus, a user creating a document for a specific purpose will not only have a wide range of options for creating an overall visual impression with the document, but will often be concerned that the selected overall visual impression be consistent with the purpose of the text.
With complicated documents, such as multi-chapter textbooks, the overall visual impression, while typically not on the level of a poster, is nonetheless crucial for the efficient conveying of complicated information. For example, chapters should typically begin on their own page; section titles should be conspicuously set off, for example by a color subtitle; equations should be set off from the text; key words may be highlighted in boldface, italics, or color. In addition, it is typically preferable that multi-page documents, such as books, create a consistent and cohesive visual impression.
In a corporation having a large sales force merchandising complicated or various items, such as cars, computers, office equipment, etc., it is likely that a large number of different sales documents be prepared for different products and for different potential customers. In addition, these documents are typically updated fairly often, and for the sake of efficiency, it would be helpful if the layout of the various documents, and the overall visual impression thereof, be made consistent throughout several versions of a continually updated document. Consistency in the visual impression is valuable in retaining a "professional" look and in demonstrating to a customer or potential customer that different versions of, for example, a catalog represent a continuing and freshly-updated sales process. It would be helpful, however, if this updating could be handled in as automated a fashion as possible, with minimal disruption to the visual effect over successive generations of documents.
In the context of a single corporation or other organization producing a large quantity of different documents, there is also the necessity that the visual impression of several documents, no matter when they are created, create a consistent "family" effect and will appear to come from a uniform source, even if the various documents are developed by different groups within a large organization. For example, if a corporation having two sub-groups, located in different cities, it would be helpful if each sub-group could produce its own documents independently, but with the assurance that the documents released to the customer will appear to come from the same organization regardless of the specific subgroup. It would be helpful to have an automatic system to ensure that documents created by different people within an organization have a consistent visual impression.
The present invention is generally directed to an automated system by which a document having both text and graphical data therein may be created or evaluated for a desired psychological effect, or visual impression. The document in electronic digital data form may be acted upon by the system to yield a document having a visual impression which is suitable for the text, and/or consistent with other documents. Alternately, the system may be adapted to receive a quantity of text and/or other information in a raw form and output a document in which the text is set out according to predetermined rules of layout.
2. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,873,643 discloses an interactive design terminal by which a user may create a custom imprinted article, such as a T-shirt. The terminal presents an ordered sequence of print design choices to the user, via a video display, and stores the results of the operator selections.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,800,510 discloses a system for designing the layout of computer-generated graphs. The user enters selected high level "design control parameters." Using these parameters, the program creates a graph based on predetermined data, in accordance with the particular graphical situation selected by the user.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,831,546 discloses a program for assisting in the design of, for example, factories having systems of piping and/or wiring therein, and produces a proposed factory layout consistent with the requirements of the designer. The designer specifies one of the specified layout objects, and another layout object which interferes with the specified layout object is found in a layout area. An economical loss imposed on the specified layout object attributable to the other layout object is evaluated. Thus, various alternatives in the layout of the factory may be presented to the designer for evaluation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,881,197 discloses a system for composing and editing a document in which the geometry created by text may be incorporated into a text with a minimum of embedded commands. The user enters a desired format name and a desired font name, and the system adapts the layout of the text accordingly.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,923,314 discloses a thesaurus feature for finding synonyms of words as they are typed into an electronic typewriter. Each word in an electronic dictionary within the system is identified by a special code immediately following the word so synonyms may be readily derived from the electronic thesaurus, as necessary.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,111,392 discloses a program by which an arrangement of furniture pieces may be determined according to user requirements of storage, privacy and electrical elements. Further, the finish, color, and fabric to be used in the furniture can be determined. An updated cost and bill of materials can be provided by the system on the completion of each step of the design process.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,133,051 discloses a database publishing system using a plurality of microprocessors for flowing manuscript material such as text and graphics into predefined entities, making up the structure of a publication according to predetermined attributes associated with each entity. The structure and appearance of the publication can be defined in advance before entering the manuscript material making up the publication, so that manuscript material making up a plurality of publications can be in process at the same time in various processing stages in order to image the publications in assembly line fashion.
The book Graphics Design for Electronic Documents and User Interfaces by Aaron Marcus (ACM Press, 1992) at 46-47 describes an experiment in which C source code was redesigned according to a program incorporating principles of systems-space and information-oriented graphic design to obtain an "optimum visual solution."
The pamphlet "How To Take The Fog Out of Writing" by Robert Gunning (Dartnell Corporation) demonstrates a type of "point count system" for evaluating the readability of a given quantity of text.
Principles of Color by Birren (Van Nostrand) discusses general principles of color harmony in the graphic design context.
Graves, The Art of Color and Design (McGraw-Hill, 1951) is a further discussion of simple design rules which are useful in evaluating the overall visual impression of a document.